


The Mechanics of This World

by orphan_account



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6850954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy turned to Edmund.<br/>“England,” she said. The word tasted funny on her tongue, “We’re in England.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mechanics of This World

As they stumbled back through the wardrobe, with the familiar smell of the old Narnian forest fading away into the long-forgotten odor of moth-eaten winter coats, Lucy’s heart dropped down, and disappeared into the pits of the stomach.

She stopped, making her siblings, pushing and yelling at each other behind her, stop as well.

“What’s the matter, Lu?” Edmund’s voice, grown deep through the years, floated amusedly behind her, “too scared to go forward?”

Lucy frowned, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ed. Let’s go back.”

“Bad feeling?” repeated Peter, “ Bad feeling about an adventure? You must have gone mad.”

And then he pushed her forward. And then they fell, down, down, and –

Lucy’s knee hit the floor before she could draw a breath to scream. She blinked as sunlight filled the dusty room, outlining four pairs of hurried footprints racing towards the herself.

And then she sneezed, her voice higher-pitched.

Lucy thought it must have been the nerves, the result of finding an unfamiliar place, the result of those hurried footsteps.

“Wh-what is this place?” A boy’s voice squeaked.

She whipped around, thinking that a young faun had followed them through whatever doorway led them into this strange world.

But it was Edmund. Edmund from years ago, the Edmund who had been frightened of war, of kindness, of himself. A scrap of a boy. He was brushing something off his knobbly knees. Eyes wide, innocent, bewildered.

Another door creaked open, It was an old man, a kindly old man with white hair in a mess, spectacles slightly crooked. He was holding up a small ball.

He cracked a smile, “Somebody’s been up to some mischief,” and threw the ball at Peter. Peter caught it, and stared.

“Don’t break any more windows,” the old man said, eyes twinkling, “or I might throw you out of the house.”

And then he left, shutting the door quietly behind him. They could hear him whistling as he walked away.

Lucy turned to Edmund.

“England,” she said. The word tasted funny on her tongue, “We’re in England.”

*

The professor called them down for tea later that evening, and they sat in a little room full of books and trinkets sipping something called Earl Grey. The tea was a little spicy, with a hint of citrus. But it was also murky, blurred, clouded with milk, nothing like Narnian tea that told stories as it danced across her taste buds.

“Well,” said the professor, face questioning, eyes probing, “what was it like?”

Lucy turned to Peter, High King of Narnia who spoke for them all, and found a gangly boy on the brink of puberty, legs twitching and restless. Peter was looking out of the window, and appeared not to have heard.

Susan’s expression was stony, she was scarfing down her tea scalding hot and kept her gaze down.

Edmund had altogether refused to come down for tea.

“Tea?” He’d laughed, “What good would tea do? Two goblets of strong wine might do the trick.”

So it was up to Lucy now. She thought of the Beavers, of Mr. Tumnus, of Aslan. But their faces and voices were shadows, so far away. Lucy had always thought that Narnia was embedded in her, ingrained. But now she felt as if she told the professor what Narnia was like, if she let even a scratch of it escape form her being, the memory of it would be gone, and her kingdom would crumble.

She gripped her thighs tightly, looked the professor right in the eye.

Once a queen or king of Narnia, she told herself, always a king or queen.  


“It was like a dream,” said Lucy, “Just like a dream.”

She went outside for a long walk after, stood under an apple tree and held it by its trunk and tried to teach it how to dance. A toad by the creek croaked a song, but Lucy couldn’t for the life of her understand what the lyrics were.

When she came back to the room she and her sister shared, she found Susan reading a book.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked, the book was flimsy, nothing like the tomes Susan and Edmund so loved to pore over back home.

Susan shrugged, “Something that I was reading before we went to Narnia.” Then she threw the book aside, “Something stupid.”

Lucy picked it up. “How Could You, Jennifer?” She read.

Susan grunted, “Told you.”

She marched across the room, flung open her covers, and buried herself between the sheets, her back facing Lucy.

Lucy sighed and got into her own bed.

“Do you feel small, Susan?”

Her sister shifted, “No. I feel cramped.”

Lucy stared at the ceiling, “I do. I feel small.”

Susan didn’t reply.

She let her thoughts drifted back to last night. Their last night in Narnia. Lucy had braided Susan’s hair tight and left her own hanging to dance with the breeze. They had giggled at Susan’s handsomer suitors and made japes at the diplomats that had mistaken them for naïve children instead of seasoned monarchs with bodies decorated with verbal battle scars. Being a queen with a country was hard, especially in those early years when they had a kingdom to rebuild out of the melting snow.

To be a queen without a kingdom was even harder.

*

She went back to the wardrobe that night, opened the wooden doors and discovered more wood. She stood shivering in her nightgown and asked herself why. They had gone to Narnia with a purpose, had they something to fulfill back here in England as well? Susan felt cramped but Lucy felt small. She felt like she hadn’t been thrust into a whole wider world whose mechanics were those she was unfamiliar with. This was a world in which people cut down trees instead of dancing with them. This was a world in which things were torn down and rebuilt and torn down again. This was a world in which every man and woman wanted to be a king or queen of something and they fought with guns and laughter and silences to get there.

Lucy felt small because she felt herself stripped of almost everything she had known. Susan had slept with her back towards Lucy tonight, and they had gone to bed without really talking. Susan hadn’t slept with her back to Lu in years. Lucy felt small because she had to reconstruct the meaning of being and the meaning behind beings all over again.

The moon shone brighter and colder than Lucy remembered it ever did in Narnia. It shone brighter and colder than even the days of the White Witch, when the Hundred-Year Winter covered the land with its hard, forbidding breath. It lit up the trees guarding the front yard and cast jagged shadows on the silver grass. Lucy ragged out a sigh. Beautiful, she thought.

A creak sounded behind her and she jumped. And suddenly Peter and Edmund were there, clad in pyjamas and slippers, holding a candle. Two boys on a late-night adventure.

“Lu?” said Edmund, “what are you doing up? It’s almost two in the morning.”

“There nothing but dead wood in there, Ed, “said Lucy, her voice almost shaking but not quite. She held her head up high.

Peter started towards the wardrobe door.

“Don’t you believe me?” she asked.

In the dark, Lucy could hear Peter blush.

“Thought I might just check,” he mumbled, and backed away.

“Let’s get back to bed,” said Edmund, “Wouldn’t want MacCready yelling at us again.” He paused, “ do you think we’ll find a way back one day, Lu?”

Lucy looked back at the wood of the back of the wardrobe, and weighed hope against the heaviness of her heart.

“Yes. Yes, I think we will.”


End file.
